Reaching for Forgiveness
by WinterSky101
Summary: Lin's bending is back, thanks to Korra, but there's still other things that need fixing as well. Post-Book One: Air.


Lin wakes with a cry, jerking upright and tangling herself in sweat-soaked sheets. She immediately reaches for the small piece of metal on the table next to her, bending it to remind herself that she can. Amon took her bending, but Korra gave it back. It's _back_.

The time without her bending was one of the worst of Lin's life. Her bending is one of the only things her mother gave her. She can't lose it.

Lin curls forward, holding the metal tightly in her fists, pressed against her stomach. Amon took her bending, but Korra gave it back. Amon is defeated, no one else can ever take her bending away again, she doesn't have to worry about it. She can feel the metal curled beneath her fingers, she can feel the earth below her, her bending is _back_.

"Lin?"

Lin jumps, her eyes going wide. Her door cracks open before she has a chance to reply, and a head peeks in. It's Pema, her big green eyes innocent as ever, baby Rohan cradled in her arms. Lin should forgive her for marrying Tenzin, she should have forgiven her a long time ago, but she still feels that familiar stab of anger when she sees her face.

"Pema."

Pema apparently takes that as an invitation, as she opens the door and steps in, closing it behind her. "I heard you cry out when I was feeding Rohan," she says. "I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," Lin snaps. "Go back to bed."

Pema doesn't go back to bed. She takes a few steps closer instead, concern lining her brow. "Are you sure? You don't look too good."

"I'm _fine_ ," Lin repeats, giving Pema the best glare she can muster at the moment. "Go away."

Pema doesn't go away. She seems to be very bad at listening to directions. Instead, she comes and sits on the bed next to Lin. "It's okay if you're not fine," she says gently. "You were pretty beat up even before you went up against Amon, and I know the Equalists weren't gentle in the prisons." Pema reaches out one hand to touch Lin's, but Lin scowls and yanks her hand away. "And it couldn't have been easy to have your bending taken away," Pema adds quietly.

Lin sets her jaw. "I'm fine. Will you just _leave_?"

"Lin-"

Lin's anger, which she's held tightly coiled in her chest for so long now, overflows. She pushes it down, under the ice, into the foundations of the room, making the ground tremble. "Get. _Out_."

Pema looks worried, but she's still stubbornly staying put. Lin hates her. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and tries to get up, but she doesn't even manage to get fully upright before she's doubled over, hissing out a sharp breath as her too-fast movements jar her bruised and battered body.

"Lin!" Pema cries, pulling her gently back up on the bed. Lin yanks her arm away. The movement wakes Rohan, who begins to cry.

"Oh, hush, darling, it's alright," Pema tells him quickly, rocking him gently. "Hush, Rohan, you're alright, don't cry!"

Rohan keeps crying. Pema keeps trying to get him to quiet down, but nothing's working. Lin realizes that Pema looks absolutely exhausted. She wonders if she should feel some sort of pleasure at that, but instead, she feels a stab of sympathy.

"Give me the baby."

Pema stares at her, wide-eyed. "Oh, come on," Lin grumbles. "I'm not going to eat him. Just give him to me."

After a long moment, Pema hands baby Rohan over. Lin cradles him in her arms - she hasn't held a baby in years, but she remembers how - and begins to rock him back and forth. Uncomfortably aware that Pema is staring at her, she starts crooning a lullaby.

Her voice isn't exactly lovely, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it's calming enough to get Rohan to quiet down. It's for her own benefit, she tells herself. She just wants to get the kid to shut up. It has nothing to do with how tired Pema looks. Lin tells herself that and holds Rohan, still rocking, and sings until he falls asleep.

"How did you do that?" Pema asks in a whisper when Rohan's little eyelids drift shut. "I didn't know you were so good with kids!"

"My little sister was born when I was six," Lin replies. "Mom was always busy, so I watched Su a lot."

"I didn't know you had a sister."

"No, you wouldn't," Lin replies, her voice a little bitter. "I haven't talked to her in almost thirty years."

"Thirty years?" Pema looks horrified. "Why not?"

Lin remembers the stinging pain in her cheek as the ends of her cable sliced open her face, remembers the anger in her gut as her mother let Suyin go without so much as a scolding, remembers the humiliation that burned her cheeks when Toph stepped down a year later because of it. "It's a long story."

Pema glances at Rohan, asleep in Lin's arms. "He'll wake up if I try to move him."

Lin scowls. She's not sure she believes that. "It's not my problem what Tenzin's brat does."

Pema looks offended, which, considering Rohan is her child too, Lin supposes is understandable. "Why do you act so horrible?"

" _You're_ asking me that, really?" Lin demands. "Look, I'm not going to pretend everything was going well for me and Tenzin before you came along, but I thought we were going to work through it like adults. Then suddenly this _child_ fifteen years younger than us comes along, and Tenzin doesn't even have the common decency to break up with me before starting a relationship with you."

Pema shakes her head, her eyes wide. "No, Tenzin and I never did anything before he broke up with you. He barely spent any time with me before he talked with you."

Lin blinks, some of the wind taken out of her sails. Tenzin had said that, back then, but Lin hadn't believed him. If it's actually true, that makes things a little better, she supposes.

"And Lin," Pema adds tentatively, "it's been over ten years. Can't you forgive Tenzin? Can't you forgive me?"

Lin sets her jaw and looks away. She's always been one to hold grudges. There's a reason she hasn't talked to Suyin in almost thirty years, why she hasn't talked to her mother in over fifteen.

She's also never been one to trust easily, and she really thought she could trust Tenzin.

"I'm tired," she says instead of admitting that. "Take the kid and go."

Pema silently takes Rohan out of Lin's arms. He does wake, but he goes back to sleep easily as Pema murmurs to him. Lin watches as Pema stands and goes to the door.

"Tenzin misses you," she says before she leaves. "And I've always wanted us to be friends. I understand why you're angry with us, but you went up against Amon to try to give us a chance to get away. I know you still care."

Lin presses her lips together. "Close the door on your way out."

Pema does, pulling the door fully closed. Lin lies down, letting out a sigh. Tomorrow, they're all going to leave for Republic City, and she won't have to deal with Pema anymore. She'll be in the city, in her own apartment, and Pema will be on Air Temple Island with the children and Tenzin. Lin probably won't be able to avoid Tenzin, but she should be able to avoid Pema and the children fairly easily.

But - and it burns Lin to admit this, even just to herself - she _should_ let it go. Pema doesn't deserve her ire. Even Tenzin doesn't, not really. It's been ten years. She's always found Pema to be an admirable woman, even if she would never admit it to anyone on pain of death, and she misses Tenzin. She misses their relationship, but even more than that, she misses their friendship. They grew up together, they've been friends since they were children, and now that simple camaraderie is gone.

She should forgive him. She's never been very good at forgiveness, but she should give it a try.

Lin rolls onto her side. Her piece of metal fell on the floor at some point after Pema entered, but she uses her bending to pick it up and put it back on the table. She stares at it for a long moment.

When she went up against Amon and the Equalists so Tenzin and the others could get away, she told herself she was doing it for Aang. She and Aang had always been close, and she knew what rebuilding the Air Nation had meant to him. She couldn't even imagine how he would have felt to have the last four airbenders lose their bending. She told herself she did it for him, not for Tenzin.

She lied.

She did it to save Tenzin and his family. She thought of Aang, yes, but he wasn't her first thought. She didn't do it for him. She did it for Tenzin, and Pema, and Jinora, and Ikki, and Meelo, and Rohan. She did it for the living, not for the dead.

Lin takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. The trip back to Republic City will take a while. She'll have time to talk to Pema and Tenzin then. Pema said she always wanted to be friends. Maybe they can be.

Lin takes another breath, lets it out, and rolls onto her other side, facing away from the metal on the table. She reaches out, feels the solid stone foundations for a moment, then closes her eyes and drifts off to sleep.

This time, she doesn't dream.


End file.
